TCSE: Ted Corpus Search Engine

Recorded at	April 15, 2019
Event	TED2019
Duration (min:sec)	15:40
Video Type	TED Stage Talk
Words per minute	163.88 slow
Readability (FK)	55.98 medium
Speaker	Ella Al-Shamahi


1	00:12	So I've got something that I'm slightly embarrassed to admit to.
2	00:17	At the age of 17,
3	00:19	as a creationist,
4	00:21	I decided to go to university to study evolution
5	00:24	so that I could destroy it.
6	00:26	(Laughter)
7	00:28	I failed.
8	00:29	I failed so spectacularly that I'm now an evolutionary biologist.
9	00:33	(Applause)
10	00:36	So I'm a paleoanthropologist, I'm a National Geographic Explorer
11	00:39	specializing in fossil hunting in caves
12	00:42	in unstable, hostile and disputed territories.
13	00:45	And we all know that if I was a guy and not a girl,
14	00:49	that wouldn't be a job description, that would be a pick-up line.
15	00:52	(Laughter)
16	00:54	Now, here's the thing. I do not have a death wish.
17	00:57	I'm not an adrenaline junkie.
18	00:59	I just looked at a map.
19	01:02	See, frontline exploratory science does not happen as much
20	01:06	in politically unstable territories.
21	01:09	This is a map of all the places which the British Foreign Office
22	01:13	have declared contain red zones, orange zones
23	01:16	or have raised some kind of a threat warning about.
24	01:19	Now I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it is a tragedy
25	01:23	if we're not doing frontline exploratory science in a huge portion of the planet.
26	01:28	And so science has a geography problem.
27	01:32	Also, as a paleoanthropologist,
28	01:35	guys, this is basically a map of some of the most important places
29	01:38	in the human journey.
30	01:40	There are almost definitely fascinating fossils to be found here.
31	01:44	But are we looking for them?
32	01:47	And so as an undergraduate, I was repeatedly told
33	01:50	that humans, be they ourselves, homo sapiens, or earlier species,
34	01:55	that we left Africa via the Sinai of Egypt.
35	02:00	I'm English, as you can probably tell from my accent,
36	02:03	but I am actually of Arab heritage,
37	02:05	and I always say that I'm very, very Arab on the outside.
38	02:08	You know, I can really be passionate.
39	02:10	Like, "You're amazing! I love you!"
40	02:12	But on the inside, I'm really English, so everybody irritates me.
41	02:15	(Laughter)
42	02:20	It's true.
43	02:21	And the thing is, my family are Arab from Yemen,
44	02:25	and I knew that that channel,
45	02:28	Bab-el-Mandeb,
46	02:30	is not that much of a feat to cross.
47	02:32	And I kept asking myself this really simple question:
48	02:36	if the ancestors to New World monkeys could somehow cross the Atlantic Ocean,
49	02:42	why couldn't humans cross that tiny stretch of water?
50	02:46	But the thing is, Yemen,
51	02:48	compared to, let's say, Europe,
52	02:50	was so understudied
53	02:52	that it was something akin to near virgin territory.
54	02:56	But that, along with its location, made the sheer potential for discovery
55	03:03	so exciting,
56	03:05	and I had so many questions.
57	03:08	When did we first start using Bab-el-Mandeb?
58	03:11	But also, which species of human besides ourselves made it to Yemen?
59	03:16	Might we find a species as yet unknown to science?
60	03:20	And it turned out, I wasn't the only one who had noticed Yemen's potential.
61	03:24	There was actually a few other academics out there.
62	03:27	But sadly, due to political instability, they moved out, and so I moved in.
63	03:32	And I was looking for caves:
64	03:35	caves because caves are the original prime real estate.
65	03:40	But also because if you're looking for fossils in that kind of heat,
66	03:44	your best bet for fossil preservation is always going to be caves.
67	03:48	But then, Yemen took a really sad turn for the worse,
68	03:53	and just a few days before I was due to fly out to Yemen,
69	03:57	the civil war escalated into a regional conflict,
70	04:01	the capital's airport was bombed
71	04:03	and Yemen became a no-fly zone.
72	04:08	Now, my parents made this decision before I was born:
73	04:12	that I would be born British.
74	04:16	I had nothing to do with the best decision of my life.
75	04:21	And now ...
76	04:23	Now the lucky ones in my family have escaped,
77	04:28	and the others, the others are being been bombed
78	04:31	and send you WhatsApp messages that make you detest your very existence.
79	04:39	This war's been going on for four years.
80	04:42	It's been going on for over four years, and it has led to a humanitarian crisis.
81	04:48	There is a famine there,
82	04:50	a man-made famine.
83	04:52	That's a man-made famine, so not a natural famine,
84	04:55	an entirely man-made famine that the UN has warned
85	04:59	could be the worst famine the world has seen in a hundred years.
86	05:04	This war has made it clear to me more than ever
87	05:07	that no place, no people deserve to get left behind.
88	05:13	And so I was joining these other teams, and I was forming new collaborations
89	05:16	in other unstable places.
90	05:18	But I was desperate to get back into Yemen,
91	05:22	because for me, Yemen's really personal.
92	05:27	And so I kept trying to think of a project I could do in Yemen
93	05:32	that would help highlight what was going on there.
94	05:35	And every idea I had just kept failing,
95	05:39	or it was just too high-risk, because let's be honest,
96	05:42	most of Yemen is just too dangerous for a Western team.
97	05:47	But then I was told that Socotra, a Yemeni island,
98	05:53	was safe once you got there.
99	05:56	In fact, it turned out there was a few local and international academics
100	06:01	that were still working there.
101	06:03	And that got me really excited,
102	06:06	because look at Socotra's proximity to Africa.
103	06:12	And yet we have no idea when humans arrived on that island.
104	06:18	But Socotra, for those of you who know it,
105	06:21	well, let's just say you probably know it for a completely different reason.
106	06:25	You probably know it as the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean,
107	06:28	because it is one of the most biodiverse places on this earth.
108	06:33	But we were also getting information
109	06:35	that this incredibly delicate environment and its people
110	06:39	were under threat
111	06:40	because they were at the frontline of both Middle Eastern politics
112	06:44	and climate change.
113	06:46	And it slowly dawned on me that Socotra was my Yemen project.
114	06:52	And so I wanted to put together a huge multidisciplinary team.
115	06:57	We wanted to cross the archipelago on foot, camel and dhow boat
116	07:01	to conduct a health check of this place.
117	07:04	This has only been attempted once before, and it was in 1999.
118	07:07	But the thing is, that is not an easy thing to pull off.
119	07:12	And so we desperately needed a recce,
120	07:14	and for those of you who aren't familiar with British English,
121	07:17	a recce is like a scouting expedition.
122	07:19	It's like a reconnaissance.
123	07:20	And I often say that a really big expedition without a recce
124	07:27	is a bit like a first date without a Facebook stalk.
125	07:31	(Laughter)
126	07:32	Like, it's doable, but is it wise?
127	07:35	(Laughter)
128	07:39	There's a few too many knowing laughs in this room.
129	07:42	Anyway, so then our recce team thankfully were no strangers to unstable places,
130	07:48	which, let's be honest, is kind of important
131	07:50	because we were trying to get to a place between Yemen and Somalia,
132	07:54	And after calling in what felt like a million favors,
133	07:58	including to the deputy governor,
134	08:01	we finally found ourselves on the move,
135	08:05	albeit on a wooden cement cargo ship
136	08:08	sailing through pirate waters in the Indian Ocean
137	08:12	with this as a toilet.
138	08:14	(Laughter)
139	08:15	Can you guys see this?
140	08:19	You know how everybody has their worst toilet story?
141	08:23	Well, I've never swam with dolphins before.
142	08:28	I just went straight to pooping on them.
143	08:30	(Laughter)
144	08:35	And also, I genuinely discovered that I am genuinely less stressed
145	08:42	by pirate waters
146	08:43	than I am with a cockroach infestation
147	08:47	that was so intense
148	08:49	that at one point I went belowdeck,
149	08:51	and the floor was black and it was moving.
150	08:54	(Audience moans)
151	08:55	Yeah, and at night there was three raised platforms to sleep on,
152	09:00	but there was only -- let's say there was four team members,
153	09:03	and the thing is, if you got a raised platform to sleep on,
154	09:06	you only had to contend with a few cockroaches during the night,
155	09:09	whereas if you got the floor, good luck to you.
156	09:12	And so I was the only girl in the team and the whole ship,
157	09:16	so I got away without sleeping on the floor.
158	09:19	And then, on, like, the fourth or fifth night,
159	09:22	Martin Edström looks at me and goes, "Ella, Ella I really believe in equality."
160	09:27	(Laughter)
161	09:31	So we were sailing on that cement cargo ship for three days,
162	09:36	and then we slowly started seeing land.
163	09:41	And after three years of failing,
164	09:44	I was finally seeing Yemen.
165	09:46	And there is no feeling on earth like that start of an expedition.
166	09:51	It's this moment where you jump out of a jeep
167	09:54	or you look up from a boat
168	09:57	and you know that there's this possibility,
169	09:59	it's small but it's still there,
170	10:02	that you're about to find something
171	10:04	that could add to or change our knowledge of who we are and where we come from.
172	10:09	There is no feeling like it on earth,
173	10:12	and it's a feeling that so many scientists have
174	10:16	but rarely in politically unstable places.
175	10:20	Because Western scientists are discouraged or all-out barred
176	10:25	from working in unstable places.
177	10:28	But here's the thing:
178	10:30	scientists specialize in the jungle.
179	10:33	Scientists work in deep cave systems.
180	10:37	Scientists attach themselves to rockets and blow themselves into outer space.
181	10:42	But apparently, working in an unstable place
182	10:44	is deemed too high-risk.
183	10:47	It is completely arbitrary.
184	10:49	Who here in this room wasn't brought up on adventure stories?
185	10:55	And most of our heroes were actually scientists and academics.
186	11:00	Science was about going out into the unknown.
187	11:03	It was about truly global exploration, even if there were risks.
188	11:09	And so when did it become acceptable to make it difficult for science to happen
189	11:14	in unstable places?
190	11:17	And look, I'm not saying that all scientists should go off
191	11:20	and start working in unstable places.
192	11:22	This isn't some gung-ho call.
193	11:24	But here's the thing:
194	11:27	for those who have done the research, understand security protocol
195	11:32	and are trained,
196	11:34	stop stopping those who want to.
197	11:37	Plus,
198	11:39	just because one part of a country is an active war zone
199	11:43	doesn't mean the whole country is.
200	11:45	I'm not saying we should go into active war zones.
201	11:48	But Iraqi Kurdistan looks very different from Fallujah.
202	11:52	And actually, a few months after I couldn't get into Yemen,
203	11:56	another team adopted me.
204	11:58	So Professor Graeme Barker's team were actually working in Iraqi Kurdistan,
205	12:04	and they were digging up Shanidar Cave.
206	12:07	Now, Shanidar Cave a few decades earlier
207	12:10	had unveiled a Neanderthal known as Shanidar 1.
208	12:16	Now, for a BBC/PBS TV series we actually brought Shanidar 1 to life,
209	12:20	and I want you guys to meet Ned, Ned the Neanderthal.
210	12:25	Now here's the coolest thing about Ned.
211	12:28	Ned, this guy,
212	12:30	you're meeting him before his injuries.
213	12:33	See, it turned out that Ned was severely disabled.
214	12:38	He was in fact so disabled that there is no way he could have survived
215	12:42	without the help of other Neanderthals.
216	12:45	And so this was proof that,
217	12:47	at least for this population of Neanderthals at this time,
218	12:51	Neanderthals were like us,
219	12:52	and they sometimes looked after those who couldn't look after themselves.
220	12:58	Ned's an Iraqi Neanderthal.
221	13:01	So what else are we missing?
222	13:03	What incredible scientific discoveries
223	13:05	are we not making because we're not looking?
224	13:10	And by the way, these places, they deserve narratives of hope,
225	13:13	and science and exploration can be a part of that.
226	13:17	In fact, I would argue that it can tangibly aid development,
227	13:20	and these discoveries become a huge source of local pride.
228	13:25	And that brings me to the second reason why science has a geography problem.
229	13:31	See, we don't empower local academics, do we?
230	13:35	Like, it's not lost on me
231	13:37	that in my particular field of paleoanthropology
232	13:42	we study human origins,
233	13:43	but we have so few diverse scientists.
234	13:48	And the thing is, these places are full of students and academics
235	13:52	who are desperate to collaborate,
236	13:54	and the truth is
237	13:56	that for them,
238	13:57	they have fewer security issues than us.
239	14:02	I think we constantly forget that for them it's not a hostile environment;
240	14:06	for them it's home.
241	14:09	I'm telling you,
242	14:11	research done in unstable places with local collaborators
243	14:15	can lead to incredible discoveries,
244	14:18	and that is what we are hoping upon hope to do in Socotra.
245	14:24	They call Socotra
246	14:27	the most alien-looking place on earth,
247	14:30	and myself, Leon McCarron, Martin Edström and Rhys Thwaites-Jones could see why.
248	14:36	I mean, look at this place.
249	14:37	These places, they're not hellholes, they're not write-offs,
250	14:41	they're the future frontline of science and exploration.
251	14:46	90 percent of the reptiles on this island,
252	14:49	37 percent of the plant species exist here and nowhere else on earth,
253	14:55	and that includes this species of dragon's blood tree,
254	14:57	which actually bleeds this red resin.
255	15:01	And there's something else.
256	15:02	People on Socotra, some of them still live in caves,
257	15:07	and that is really exciting,
258	15:09	because it means if a cave is prime real estate this century,
259	15:12	maybe it was a few thousand years ago.
260	15:14	But we need the data to prove it, the fossils, the stone tools,
261	15:18	and so our scouting team have teamed up with other scientists,
262	15:22	anthropologists and storytellers,
263	15:24	international as well as local, like Ahmed Alarqbi,
264	15:27	and we are desperate to shed a light on this place
265	15:30	before it's too late.
266	15:34	And now, now we just somehow need to get back
267	15:38	for that really big expedition,
268	15:40	because science,
269	15:42	science has a geography problem.
270	15:45	You guys have been a really lovely audience.
271	15:47	Thank you.
272	15:49	(Applause)

Ella Al-Shamahi: The fascinating (and dangerous) places scientists aren't exploring